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Definition of Motif
A motif is an element or idea that recurs throughout a work of literature. Motifs, which are often collections of related symbols, help develop the central themes of a book... read full definition
A motif is an element or idea that recurs throughout a work of literature. Motifs, which are often collections of related symbols, help develop the... read full definition
A motif is an element or idea that recurs throughout a work of literature. Motifs, which are often collections of... read full definition
Key Examples in Middlesex
Book 1: The Silver Spoon
Explanation and Analysis—Military Genes:
Throughout Middlesex, Cal/lie often refers to genes in military terms, as soldiers who either obey or refuse to fall in line. This emerges as one of the novel's important motifs. Note the following example below, from Chapter 1:
Arrayed in their regiments, my genes carry out their orders. All except two, a pair of miscreants—or revolutionaries, depending on your view—hiding out on chromosome number 5. Together, they siphon off an enzyme, which stops the production of a certain hormone, which complicates my life.
Book 1: Matchmaking
Explanation and Analysis—Military Genes:
Throughout Middlesex, Cal/lie often refers to genes in military terms, as soldiers who either obey or refuse to fall in line. This emerges as one of the novel's important motifs. Note the following example below, from Chapter 1:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Arrayed in their regiments, my genes carry out their orders. All except two, a pair of miscreants—or revolutionaries, depending on your view—hiding out on chromosome number 5. Together, they siphon off an enzyme, which stops the production of a certain hormone, which complicates my life.
Explanation and Analysis—Filmic Imagery:
Cal/lie frequently uses the language of film to characterize emotions and events in the novel, a narrative choice that morphs into motif as the story progresses. Note the following example of this imagery from Chapter 2:
Unlock with LitCharts A+And so now, having been born, I’m going to rewind the film, so that my pink blanket flies off, my crib scoots across the floor as my umbilical cord reattaches, and I cry out as I’m sucked back between my mother’s legs. […] [W]e’re out of America completely; we’re in the middle of the ocean, the sound track sounding funny in reverse. A steamship appears, and up on deck a lifeboat is curiously rocking; but then the boat docks, stern first, and we’re up on dry land again, where the film unspools, back at the beginning…
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Genetics:
The language of genetic science, referring to mutations, genes, and the genetic "code," emerges as a prominent motif in Middlesex. Note the following example, one of many from Chapter 2:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Desdemona had no idea what was happening. She didn’t envision her insides as a vast computer code, all 1s and 0s, an infinity of sequences, any one of which might contain a bug. Now we know we carry this map of ourselves around. Even as we stand on the street corner, it dictates our destiny.
Related Themes:
Book 1: The Silk Road
Explanation and Analysis—Transmutation:
Middlesex is inundated with examples of change and transmutation, a motif that marries well with Cal's story/backstory. Mutation becomes a stand-in for the word "change," as in the following excerpt from Chapter 4:
Unlock with LitCharts A+According to an ancient Chinese legend, one day in the year 2640B.C., Princess Si Ling-chi was sitting under a mulberry tree when a silkworm cocoon fell into her teacup. [...] (In the West, this legend would slowly mutate over three millennia, until it became the story of a physicist and an apple. Either way, the meanings are the same: great discoveries, whether of silk or of gravity, are always windfalls. They happen to people loafing under trees.)
Related Themes:
